Domy Yarn

 Update on the Domy sweater.  This yarn was from Davidson's Old Mill, according to the label, and I purchased it in a box lot in an auction.  I loved the texture of the yarn.  

I recently knitted a sweater from yarn I had spun at Zeilinger's.  I took this pattern and tweaked it a little, giving it a little more ease, entering in the gauge from my Domy swatch, and lengthening the sleeves by one and a half inches. 

Yesterday I weighed my swatch.  I entered the number of stitches in the swatch (40 stitches, plus 5 stitches each side, for 50 stitches, times 72 rows.  (The part of the swatch that I measure is 40 stitches by 70 rows, but for the total weight, I have to measure the "extra" stitches).  

I entered the swatch weight and number of stitches in Garment Designer. I pressed "Generate yarn calculations" and, lo and behold, GD calculated the theoretical weight of each piece. 

Then I took the piece weights and entered them into an Excel Spreadsheet to total them.  Adding them all up, and entering the weight of the yarn balls I have,  it seems that I will have enough yarn to complete my sweater! 

But, how to distribute it my yarn evenly? I plan to make the bands solid grey and stripe the body pieces.  By calculating the ratio of the yarn I have, I was able to determine that I need to have a 2:1 proportion in the body.  I decided to use four rows of gray to every two rows of lavender.  Well, actually, it might be called Amethyst.  It's awfully close, the amount of yarn I am calculating I will need to the amount I have.  I may be playing "yarn chicken" by the time I get to the last piece.  

There will be six pieces to sew together.  My machine does not have enough needles at this gauge to join the two sides of the front and back, so my garment will have seams.  The stripes should make it easy to mattress stitch neatly.   I realize there are other techniques I could use, such as tuck or rib, to make a wider fabric, but those also result in a thicker fabric, and I would not have enough yarn to complete the project.  

I read an article online about Old Mill Yarns in the Lansing State Journal.  It was interesting to learn that the original owners' family ran the business for 100 years.  Today I called the new owners to find out more about Domy.  They have purchased the business from the original owners in Eaton Rapids and are now open in Allegan, Michigan.  The woman I talked to explained that the Domy yarn was actually mill ends of Jaggerspun Domy Heather.  Old Mill has discontinued the yarn.  Jaggerspun has also stopped spinning yarn.  She had 3 skeins of "cranberry" in stock, but that is all there is of the Old Mill Domy.  A Google search revealed that Webs online yarn store still has Jaggerspun yarn in stock, but maybe not this particular weight.   I ordered the cranberry.  Just compounding my problem, as now I will not have enough to do anything with the cranberry yarn.....   

I wondered what the name "Domy" referred to, but I did not find any answers.  

I procrastinated a lot today.  I think I have a fear of succeeding at making this sweater.  I didn't want to get started.  Finally, after we returned from dinner and my husband went to bed, I started knitting. 

Changing the yarn in the feeder every four rows is kind of a pain.  I have two color changers but I have never used either one of them.  I fiddled around trying to set up one of them but determined at the end it was for double bed work.  I am not sure if either of my color changes will work on a single bed.   Something else to research.